Massive London March Demands Israeli Arms Embargo After Police Drop Restrictions

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Protestors take part in a National March for Gaza on September 7, 2024 in London, England. 
(Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images).

“We demand our government completely stop arming Israel and push for a cease-fire now,” said the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Thousands of people gathered at London’s Picadilly Circus Saturday for the city’s latest march against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and the United Kingdom’s continued support for the Israel Defense Forces, following what organizers called “a major victory in defense of the democratic right to protest.”

The Metropolitan Police on Friday dropped its restrictions on the march, which was the first pro-Palestinian protest since last October to proceed to the Israeli embassy in London.

The police had attempted to stop campaigners from gathering before 2:30 pm, conflicting with plans to begin the rally preceding the march at noon.

“They never provided any convincing explanation or evidence for this delay, and it has caused enormous, unnecessary difficulty to the organization of a large-scale demonstration,” Ben Jamal, who leads the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the groups organizing the march, told Middle East Eye on Friday.

“It has unfortunately been part of a pattern of obstruction, delay, and lack of communication on the part of the Met which we will press them to review and reflect on for future demonstrations,” he added. “For tomorrow, we call on our supporters to turn out in their hundreds of thousands to show we will not be deterred from seeking an end to Israel’s genocide and justice for Palestine!”

Jamal said the police “saw sense and abandoned their unjustified and impractical attempt to delay the start of the march by two hours on Saturday,” allowing the march to begin at 1:30 pm.

During previous marches in which hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated in solidarity with Palestinians since last October, police have blocked off the area surrounding the Israeli embassy in Kensington, threatening anyone who protested in the vicinity with arrest.

Marching to the embassy, demonstrators made a “renewed call to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza” and demanded an “immediate and full cessation of arms supplies to Israel.”

Earlier this week, the U.K. government announced it was suspending approximately 30 of its 350 arms export licenses for Israel, saying that “there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

Human rights advocatesmedical professionals working in Gaza, and legal experts have for months demanded that Israel’s top international funders, including the U.S. and U.K., stop providing military aid as Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza and waged attacks on civilian infrastructure, killing more than 40,000 people.

The country has also been accused of carrying out genocide in a case led by South Africa at the International Court of Justice; the court has ordered Israel to end its blockade on humanitarian aid and to prevent genocide in Gaza.

“We demand our government completely stop arming Israel and push for a cease-fire now,” said the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

As Londoners marched on Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that at least 61 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in the last two days. Four people were killed in a strike on Halimah al-Saadiyah school in Jabaliya, where displaced Palestinians have been sheltering, and three were killed in a bombing at Amr Ibn al-As school in Gaza City.

Media outlets in Palestine reported that a baby named Yaqeen al-Astal had become the 37th child in Gaza to die of malnutrition since Israel began its near-total aid blockade.

International outrage also grew on Saturday regarding the killing of a Turkish American activist, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, in the West Bank on Friday. Local media and eyewitnesses said Eygi had been deliberately shot in the head by Israeli forces at a protest over the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

The U.S. called on Israel to investigate the killing on Friday, but Eygi’s family said in a statement that such a probe would not be “adequate.”

“We call on President [Joe] Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties,” said the family.

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the United Nations, called for “a full investigation of the circumstances” and said that “people should be held accountable. And again, civilians must be protected at all times.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingMassive London March Demands Israeli Arms Embargo After Police Drop Restrictions

Coalition Statement: We Will March on Sat 7 Sept

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https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/coalition-statement-we-will-march-on-sat-7-sept/

“We will assemble at the advertised point, and, in exercising our right to peaceful protest, we will march to the Israeli Embassy.”

We are deeply concerned by the Metropolitan Police’s decision to impose severe and unjustified restrictions on Saturday’s demonstration against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. These new conditions, including a delayed start time of two and a half hours after the advertised assembly, effectively hinder our fundamental right to peaceful assembly and protest. For 18 consecutive marches since October, we have gathered at 12 PM and commenced shortly thereafter—an arrangement that accommodates those travelling long distances, including thousands who have pre-booked coach travel. The last-minute disruption of these plans, without any clear rationale, raises serious questions about the police’s respect for our democratic rights.

Since notifying the police of our intentions on 8 August, we have faced a series of delays, obstacles, and uncooperative behaviour. Meetings have been cancelled without notice, and our reasonable proposal for an alternative route to the Israeli Embassy was dismissed outright. Now, with just four days’ notice, the police have imposed these new conditions without explanation, creating unnecessary obstacles for a demonstration expected to draw over one hundred thousand people.

The treatment of the Palestine movement by the police is unprecedented and deeply troubling. The consistent refusal to consider our proposed routes and the imposition of unreasonable conditions appear to be based on unfounded assumptions that our protests will lead to disruption or disorder, despite our long history of peaceful demonstrations. Such actions risk undermining the right to protest, a cornerstone of democracy.

It is crucial that the police reconsider these actions in light of their responsibility to uphold democratic freedoms. We will assemble at the advertised point, and, in exercising our right to peaceful protest, we will march to the Israeli Embassy. It is essential that the police recognise the importance of respecting the rights of citizens to gather and express their views peacefully.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Palestinian Forum in Britain

Friends of Al-Aqsa

Stop the War Coalition

Muslim Association of Britain

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Continue ReadingCoalition Statement: We Will March on Sat 7 Sept

Campaigners demand Met stop bid to disrupt march for Palestine

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/campaigners-demand-met-stop-bid-to-disrupt-march-for-palestine

People take part in a national demonstration for Gaza from Russell Square to Whitehall in London, June 8, 2024

SCOTLAND YARD has been urged to abandon plans to impose new orders that would seriously disrupt Saturday’s March for Palestine demonstration in London.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), union leaders, MPs, peers and coalition partners expressed concern over the force severely restricting the protest in an open letter today.

The Met was accused of employing tactics “to deter people from attending” the 18th national peaceful demonstration against the Gaza genocide since last October.

On Monday, the Met was accused of refusing to participate in negotiations in a “transparent and accountable” way with the march’s organisers.

Signatories of PSC’s letter raised concerns over the eleventh-hour announcement that the Met wanted the march delayed by nearly two hours “without explanation or rationale” and its refusal to allow Pall Mall as an assembly point.

They added: “We worry that these kind of delays, and late challenges and conditions to the plans of what are entirely peaceful demonstrations, are forming a pattern.”

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/campaigners-demand-met-stop-bid-to-disrupt-march-for-palestine

Continue ReadingCampaigners demand Met stop bid to disrupt march for Palestine

More economic pain and hardship isn’t what people voted for, says Carla Denyer

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Image of the Green Party's Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

Responding to Keir Starmer’s speech in which he said that the Labour government has inherited a £22bn black hole in the nation’s finances, as well as a “societal black hole”, co-leader of the Green Party Carla Denyer MP said:

“Enduring more economic pain and hardship isn’t what people voted for. They were told they were voting for change. Not voting for things to get worse before they get better. Labour needs to be honest about the fact that they could choose to make things better for everyone if they were bolder and braver.

“What is being framed as tough choices is actually about political choices. People don’t need a constant reminder that the Tories broke Britain. They need a new approach, not misguided fiscal rules that are set to make things worse.  

“We must generate the funds needed for investment by shifting the burden away from the poorest onto the wealthiest. Labour’s refusal to tax the super-rich shows that business as usual is very much still in business.  

Continue ReadingMore economic pain and hardship isn’t what people voted for, says Carla Denyer

Government ‘showing disregard for the law’, Liberty warns in anti-protest legal challenge

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Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.
Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.

https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/government-showing-disregard-for-the-law-liberty-warns-in-anti-protest-legal-challenge/

  • Home Office continues appeal against Liberty’s successful legal challenge to anti-protest rules, which the High Court had previously found unlawful
  • Legislation gave police ‘almost-unlimited’ powers to impose conditions on protests that caused ‘more than minor’ disruption.
  • Liberty said “We will ensure a government is not allowed to wilfully ignore the rules at the expense of our fundamental human rights” 

The human rights organisation Liberty has questioned the new Government’s “concerning disregard for the rule of law” as the Home Office has instructed lawyers to proceed with an appeal against a recent High Court ruling that anti-protest legislation had been created unlawfully.

The legislation, which significantly reduced the threshold at which the police could impose almost-unlimited conditions on protests to anything that they deemed caused ‘more than minor disruption’, had been brought in by then Home Secretary Suella Braverman in June 2023. Previously the threshold had been set at anything that caused ‘serious disruption’.

Liberty challenged the legislation in court, arguing that it was unlawful since it had already been democratically rejected by Parliament just a few months earlier, and was subsequently brought in “via the back door” through ‘secondary legislation’, which required less Parliamentary scrutiny and debate.

In May 2024, the High Court agreed with Liberty’s arguments, ruling that “more than minor cannot mean serious”. The Court also found that the Government had failed to undertake a fair consultation period, instead only inviting thoughts from those it knew would be supportive of its proposals, such as the police but not protest groups.

The previous Government had lodged an appeal against the ruling, and despite requesting an adjournment and meeting to discuss the regulations, the new Government has now decided to continue the appeal. The appeal hearing is expected to take place later in the year.

https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/government-showing-disregard-for-the-law-liberty-warns-in-anti-protest-legal-challenge/

Continue ReadingGovernment ‘showing disregard for the law’, Liberty warns in anti-protest legal challenge